Hydrogen-induced changes in palladium surface structure: Field ion microscopy study

Abstract

In this work the field ion microscopy technique was used in order to examine hydrogen-induced changes in palladium surface structure in the context of surface palladium hydrides formation. The goal of the study is to determine the crystallographic planes on which the particles of interest are formed with greatest intensity. Employing a method which consists in finding the differences in the brightness of field ion microscopy images we found that the structures of palladium surface hydrides, the size of which varies from 1 to 30 nm, develop mainly on {110} planes of palladium.